The Hunger

I’m hungry. I’m hungry for connection. I’m hungry for my music to get out of my head, around my circle, out into the world where it can make new friends and I can follow its path on an adventure to find my people and share with them what I have. This cartoon came today and it reminded me of that old grumble in my belly. It started as a teenager, wanting to find my place, my people, make my art, my mark.

Now I’ve lived with it so long that I don’t notice when days of suppressing it go by because I’m busy, distracted. But it’s not hard to bring back the old desperation these days, the feeling that I’m going to go crazy if I don’t hurry up and become what I want to be and think I am, if I can just prove it to myself and the world.

I’ve lived with it so long that I know, from thousands of spent cycles, that the hunger is a feeling that aches itself away and is dissipated without being translated into anything more often than not. And as I get older and more disciplined, I see that whatever progress I’ve managed to make, it is often in many different directions.

Instead of having a journey of a thousand miles to show for my hunger, I’ve got a map of a small area, wandered and traversed thousands of  times. Now I know that the hunger is only a drive that must be directed or it will spin me around and around like I’m blindfolded, playing pin the tale on the donkey with my own ass.

Focus On The Work, Not The Tools

wired guyI’ve been fretting about which tool to use. Which private wiki? Which CRM for my contact lists? I haven’t been writing and staying connected. It’s such a small, almost unconscious distraction that lead me away from making art and spreading it to getting lost in the details.

The answer staring me in the face is to use the nearest easiest tools right around me. My blog to keep my daily tally. Google and Facebook to keep my contacts.

It’s all about focus. What are you focusing on? I’m focusing on producing songs, crafting my catalog. I’m focused on sharing that art. I’m not going to focus on which tool to use instead of using the ones I’ve got.